Bring Yourself Down
by EmitTime
Summary: In light of the question of Scottish independence, Scotland and England have a discussion about freedom, pride and letting go.


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**Bring Yourself Down**

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The waters of the loch were calm, lapping languidly at his oars as he rowed away from the shore. Summer breeze ruffled his hair and teased the smoke away from his cigarette in wafts. His strong arms propelled the oars in familiar back-and-forth motions, carrying him closer to the structure rising into the swirled mass of grey clouds above him.

Upon the Perch, he could see a figure with their back turned, gazing out the opposite direction over the loch and mountains beyond.

Allistor shook his head with a wry, barely audible snort. That figure looked so small. No one would believe who he was, if they hadn't already seen it for themselves.

He secured the boat to the dock with assured knots, centuries of practice lending a deft ease to his calloused hands. There was no fear of having the thing stolen - not here, where all was so still, old and tired. Very few locals were out and about, not on a work day with the Games going on to boot. There were no tourists in sight at all, having much more interesting places to be visiting during the glory season of summer.

The Perch was showing its age, with rust visible around the base and hairline cracks spreading like thin, dark spiderwebs over the outside of cylindrical checkered walls. The late afternoon sun cast faint rays though breaks in the clouds, glaring dully off sooty glass panels.

Why Arthur decided to meet here instead of a nice pub, Allistor couldn't understand.

He took his time before he ascended the wooden stairs, inhaling a final, long drag before putting his cigarette out beneath his steel-toed boot. He'd need a fresh one up there. His civil, serious conversations with Arthur were few and far in between. It simply wasn't their nature, even after these years.

He should have brought a drink, but there would be time enough for that later.

When he emerged from the lantern room onto the deck, Arthur hadn't moved at all. He was still facing away from him, leaning lightly upon the railing with one leg crossed over the other. He looked casual, even at ease.

It was a sham.

"A right odd place for a chit-chat." The fiery redhead remarked as he stepped up beside his brother.

"I enjoy visiting lighthouses. It's easy to think up here, easy to be. We are standing upon a beacon of hope right now...an instrument of guidance." Arthur turned his head to glance at him briefly. His jade eyes were shuttered, guarded, the only honest giveaway amidst his amicable demeanor. "Incredible, isn't it?"

"Aye, when you put it that way." Allistor's eyes crinkled in bemusement for a moment, and he could almost forget why they were here. But he could never overlook what they represented, even on days like this when they were dressed like normal men, when they could have been any pair of brothers who weren't bearing a nation's weight upon their backs.

Wishful thinking, it was.

He drew out his lighter and reached into his shirt pocket for a fresh cigarette. "Want a smoke?"

"No, thank you. You know I quit..." Arthur trailed off abruptly, deciding to omit his reasoning.

"Yea. Wouldn't want to be a bad influence on the brat, eh?" Allistor's gaze darkened somberly as he ignited the stick with a deft flick of the lighter. He was impatient to skip the idle chatter, never having been one for wasted words or time. "Speaking of him, I could have done it sooner."

"Done what?" At the change of subject, Arthur dropped his pretense of a light tone, leaning a bit more heavily on the aged wooden railing. "Left?"

"The referendum, first. I could have pushed to have it done sooner, at the beginning of July. I put it off."

Arthur bristled instantly, his jaw tightening in quiet indignation at the implication. "That's ridiculous. I don't need my feelings spared, least of all by _you_. Don't pretend to start being considerate now, after all this time."

A twinge of faint abasement tugged at the edge of Allistor's conscience. It was a cheap shot to start up with, he knew. He shouldn't have brought up America of all people just then, but old habits die hard and poking at England was an old, old habit. "Don't pretend with me either, Arthur. I've known you since you were a wee bairn."

"You hardly knew me. You shot arrows at me -"

"And ya figured out how to make a bow and shoot 'em right back, didn't ya?"

England huffed. "This isn't about me. It's about you and your...in..." He couldn't even say the word, which for all his prickly front meant that he was stressed, haggard, _hurt_. "Your freedom."

"Ah." Allistor regarded him shrewdly. "Aye, it is."

Refusing to turn his head again, Arthur gazed resolutely upon the soft, smooth surface of the loch below. "We'd be fine without you. If you want out so badly... It's fine. We'll write an agreement."

"Nay, it isn't fine." Allistor scoffed, not unkindly. "It never is with you. If the others knew how sensitive you are...how everything has to be taken _so_ personally..."

"And how can I not take this personally?! Do you expect me not to feel anything at all, when it was you and I who founded this union between the four of us, who _started_..." England's voice rose, and there it was, that false composure slipping so soon. Allistor wondered why Arthur even bothered. He was getting worse and worse at the gimmick. "We were so lost before, and when we came together I finally felt _strong_..."

"And you drove us into the ground for that strength, Arthur!" Then again, his own fuse was not any longer, and that was why they'd never communicated well.

"I drove us to greatness! It required sacrifice, but I never meant to hurt any of you more than - "

"More than what? More than we hurt you?" Allistor sneered. "Get over yourself, England. The games are over. I should have left years ago."

Arthur glared at him stonily, shifting his position to a more balanced, defensive stance. The irony laced in those words was not lost on either of them, not with Glasgow featured in all the news.

"Don't look at me like that." Allistor turned on his heel, pacing half moons along the short, circular lantern gallery. "There comes a time in everyone's life where they've got to stand on their own two feet. Where would you rather I be?

"At my side." Arthur corrected. "Is it really so horrible, to be at my side?"

"Are you that deluded? Look at us! You've been running this show for years. You're shite at sharing, you know that?"

"I've kept us together...kept us _safe_!" England slammed his fist against the low rampart of the platform. "Do you think you would have stood a chance on your own two feet during the wars? During the recession? What good would your freedom have done you then?"

"The world is different now. Times are changing, and the Empire is long gone. Wake up!" He shoved at the blonde's shoulder. "It's time you let go. You'd be fine without me."

"I have no choices." Arthur jerked himself away, folding his arms. "I should have been more prepared for this. You've always hated me. It stands to reason you'd jump on this opportunity. Don't come to me when you find it's not the glorious position you think it is, you beef-wit. I won't want to hear it!"

"If I hated you, I wouldn't be standing here. What do you want from me? You don't need my people or the industries. You want to keep the land, aye?"

"I don't need your land." England denied petulantly, fingers curling around his elbows. "I don't need _you,_ so don't flatter yourself so much as to think I would _miss you._"

"I know you, Arthur." Allistor rolled his eyes, heaving a long-suffering sigh as he watched ripples form and spread across the waters below. "You act like you want to be alone, but you clutch at us so close that we're smothered. You chain us to you because you're afraid, because you can't stand to trust anyone or be seen as the wee fellow. Well, I don't mind steppin' out alone. I don't mind coming home to an empty house, I don't mind working my arse off day and night if it means I'm not harnessed by you anymore!"

The blonde gritted his teeth. "Spare me the drivel, at least. You've not said anything I haven't heard before. I...don't want you to leave." He admitted, strained and slow, deliberately measured. "I don't want...to have to look at you and see another person I've pushed away, another person I've _failed_. I don't want you to be another person whom I think about at night when I wonder where I went wrong, when I regret... I don't want you to be another person I _hate myself_ for, Allistor!" His voice escalated into a yell.

Another pang of sorrow threatened to nestle itself somewhere around his ashen lungs, but the older nation pushed it back and shook his head. "If I am ever to be one of those people, then it will be up to you, not I."

Arthur was quiet, stunned by the blunt statement. "So it is." He muttered in ascent, tracing splintered cracks in the rampart with a slim, slightly shaking index finger.

England was like a pillar with a tendency to crumble down, unless he was built up again or held up to start with. He gathered himself together for others and stitched over old wounds with a practiced embroidery of collected poise and prickly words.

Scotland knew all these things, though it had taken him centuries to realize the stages. He'd seen the ugly mars his brother tried to hide from the world – the kind one couldn't see physically, anyway. He'd been a witness to his drunken worst and the extents of his breakdowns. It worried him - for everything between them, he was _still_ the big brother of Europe's Black Sheep.

Withal, his people had to come above all else, even family. It was simply the nature of things.

England was talking again. The blonde's voice still shook, shoulders quivering with effort to stay in control. "I know the day is coming when there will be no one left, when I find myself well and truly alone and quite...quite the little guy, indeed. I don't know how I'll handle that day."

"You'll pick up and move on, just like the rest of us."

"Will I?" England gazed up. The clouds were slowly parting, giving way to pools of cerulean sky and beams of summer warmth. "There are times when I regret...ever getting this far. Perhaps you should be the one letting me go." He laughed then, devoid of humor. "Wouldn't you savour that? Having our positions switched in your favour?"

Sighing heavily, Allistor shrugged. He didn't have problems with honesty like Arthur did. He'd always made it clear that he resented being ruled over by his younger brother. Who could truly blame him?  
"You ain't the only one with regrets, Arthur. You're my wee brother. I never should have let you have so much control over me. But this ain't all just to spite you, you big-headed goon. I wouldn't be actually leaving you if my people didn't want it."

"And if they didn't? You would continue to stay out of pure obligation, pure necessity, miserable with your status?"

"Nay, I'm not like you in that way. I've been through too damn much to waste time being miserable." Allistor took a long drag from his cigarette, unhurriedly exhaling smoke from the corner of his mouth. "You, yet, will let your emotions erode yourself if someone doesn't come and try to knock some sense into you. You think I'm not worrying, that I'm just sitting around enjoying myself at your expense? I don't know if I'm coming or going, if I'm going to have to buck up and leave or stay a while longer. It's all up to them. It's about what they want, not us. You understand?"

"I do. I understand, by now." Arthur conceded, chuckling bitterly. "I wonder when your day will be. Do you know how many independence days I have to write down at this point? It's a lot to keep up with."

"Well, I wonder how all that came to pass." Allistor replied with the least amount of derision he could muster.

Silence fell over the two brothers, the wind whispering and ruffling their hair as they stood on the deck.

"I did my best, Alba." England whispered after a time. "I made many mistakes, I used you and the others and I landed us in heaps of trouble, but I did my best. I have nothing left to offer if it wasn't enough."

"The only thing you can offer me is my right to be my own nation. I don't need anything else."

"And I don't want to be like I used to be. I don't want to be like Russia." England murmured. In other scenarios, in other times, for other people, he would have fought the issue. _I won't allow it_, he would have said. He would have sought to chain the wayward ones and bind them to him, as Allistor had accused. But he was a different man, and the fight wasn't worth it this time. "Leave, stay, I don't rightly care. Your loyalty has always been begrudging."

"You won't be like that. You're not so blind anymore." Allistor cast his eyes downward, to the aged wood and steel beneath their feet. "Everything is going to change."

"It already has." Arthur replied with a brittle tongue. "You can't take an idea back. They'll want to be free, and you'll leave sooner or later... If not after September, then in five years, or ten, or twenty, or another century."

"There won't be a war with us, though."

"No. Not again." They had spent too many years fighting with kin. England bowed his head, tension heavy between his shoulders. "I fear, however, that even without a war, one of us will lose from such a deal."

A disdainful frown pulled at the corners of Allistor's mouth. "You think I can't make it on my own - that I don't even have the right to try."

"Do you?"

"I'll do whatever it takes, whatever I must. The chance is already there."

Shaking his head slowly, Arthur curled his hands into harsh, white-knuckled fists. "Possibilities are far from guarantees. You wonder why I am the way I am, why I do the things I do... It's so easy to go wrong in this world."

Allistor flicked his gaze back up to his brother, before he shut his eyes briefly. "You haven't gone so wrong, wee one. You won. You had the world, but now you don't." _Thank God_, he added to himself. "You've got to let go of that, give yourself your own freedom. Get rid of that pride before it does kill you."

"What am I without my pride, without my armor?" A disbelieving scoff was delivered by the shorter of the two. "It formed of necessity. I don't know how...how to live without it."

"Well then, we'd both be trying something new, wouldn't we?" Scotland placed a hand on his thin shoulder, resting it there in gentle consolation for a fraction of a moment. "Be good to yourself, and to the rest of us."

For half of that instant, England seemed to allow himself to lean back before finally turning to face him. He looked tired, old and young and lost and assured all at once. "Time makes fools of us all, over and over, doesn't it?"

Allistor felt a strange mix of emotions rush over him, a twisted sense of pride and relief warring with regret and uncertainty, there were half-comprehensible things he wanted to say to his brother but couldn't, unanswered questions he wouldn't ponder, because in the end none of any of it truly mattered. And wasn't that a damned cursed and blessed factor of life?

When the poll came back and the black ink touched down - _no matter what it said, you couldn't erase an idea_ - and all was said and done, it would already be too late.

He exhaled from his smoke-coated lungs, a heavy breath being the closest he would get to letting all the rest out. "We never stop bein' fools, Arthur. We just don't always realize it."

Turning away, he could see the sun dip further down the sky, sinking toward the rolling hills and mounts on the horizon.

England had been right. There was a certain view seen from a lighthouse which couldn't be rightly explained, opening one's eyes to more of the world than otherwise discernible. The water stretched across to those distant-seeming mountains, sparkling with bronze and gold rays. Those peaks rose higher than either of them stood even upon the tower.

It was a free wonder, and it was theirs. Soon enough, it might be his alone. Only time would tell.

He glanced back at the younger nation. They would continue to see each other at the Games, in fact they might even meet up for drinks. But it wouldn't be the same, not so open and exposed as this. They would pretend not to notice what was looming, would not bring it up outside of formal cuff-and-boot, handshaking meetings.

It was easier that way, all around.

"We'll talk again in September, Albion."

Scotland positioned the slowly dying cigarette between his lips and descended to the ground, to the softly rippling waters beneath the crowded clouds. There was no reason to look back.

Upon the deck, the reek of nicotine was still all around. England tried not to breathe it in, tried not to think of what and who he used to be and how it all changed into now and _this_.

Arthur relaxed his hands, wondering if Allistor would remember to let go of that bloody cigarette before it burned down to his fingertips.

The late afternoon breeze swiped ghostly caresses along the criss-cross lines of his palm, feeling as though it would sweep away the patterns of sin and creases of his history if only possible.

"Goodbye, Alba."

He closed his fist to the wind, and felt nothing.

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_End_

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**AN: **Perch Lighthouse, or The Perch, is located off of Coronation Park in Port Glasgow, Scotland, about 22 miles west of Glasgow.

Apologies if I butchered Scotland... I've never written him and wasn't sure how to go about it, to be quite honest.

England having quit smoking for America's sake is just a headcannon I have, there's probably no historical validation for it.

Title inspired by The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done".

Thank you for reading, and stay classy, my friends!


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